Presidents' Message

How many times in a normal day do we hear, see, or experience astonishing innovations that constantly shift the perimeters of the playing field and irreversibly transform the norms we have barely come to understand. To have a chance to look at the rear view mirror and reflect on past events is becoming a rare amenity. “Times they are” truly “a changing”, and fast!

The impact of innovation on every facet of life cannot be ignored. The most telling of contemporary terms is that we live “at an inflection point” of the human experience where globalization, technology, climate change, rise of extremist and neo populist forces are the winds of a gathering storm that has the potential to leave a calamitous impact in its wake; that is for those who do not heed the warning signs and envisage the change for a safe transition. So, it is not outlandish to state that at no time in human history has education been as important in developing the capacities and instruments of constructive change as it is today.

Higher education does not operate outside the influence of change. Whatever action universities take to respond to a constantly changing reality stands no chance of success unless the time-enduring principles of higher education are upheld: propagating relevant knowledge to impact growth, setting free innate creativity to extend human possibilities, sowing hope to confront despair, fomenting reason to allay fear, and to cultivating a responsible way of being to safeguard the human progress. At every turn in history when challenges seemed to hurtle humanity towards the abyss, the human spirit and genius was able to fashion the tools that set the course right. This maxim still rings true. The next big set of ideas needed to save the world from its folly is out there to be unearthed and the biggest role of higher education is to create the conditions for those ideas to germinate.

This is the principle that impelled Rafik Hariri to found the University that bears his namesake. A visionary, a leader and a philanthropist, Rafik Hariri believed that education is the most important human option to leverage human potential and influence positive change.

To our students and to all, this we pledge: an unwavering commitment to carry the torch forward along a path manifest with settings that are symbiotic with the hopes of the community, an educational model that challenges the norms, and a learning experience that prepares for a lifetime of meaning. Lest we forget, all this transpires on a campus where man and nature blend in an awesome harmony.